The Privateer's Revenge

'Well, there's nothing to keep us here,' Renzi said, 'and I do recall we have the better part of a year's lease left on number eighteen, all paid for, of course, and a pity to waste it.'

'No!'

'It's comfortable and . . . it's there,' Renzi finished lamely.

'I'm not leavin' here! Not until I've cleared m' name an' been taken back.'

'Tom. Dear friend. You should not set your heart on this. I sadly fear it'll prove a deep and fearful mystery that may well be impossible to penetrate at our remove. Someone is out to ruin you, and has friends . . .

'Consider—although you've been dismissed your ship, they've not succeeded in having you cashiered out of the Service. You're unemployed, but still a commander, Royal Navy, and can be given a ship at any time—but not here while Admiral Saumarez remains in command.'

'I stay,' Kydd hissed. 'If I leave, I've got no chance o' nobblin' th' bastard who did this. It's here there's th' clues, an' here I stay till I've laid him by th' tail.'

'I understand, brother,' Renzi said. 'And since these islands are proving such a singular source of ethnical curiosities, so shall I stay too.'

'I—I thank ye for it, Nicholas. I've taken rooms here as will serve.'

He took a pull at his drink, then said, 'This I don't fathom, Nicholas. Why should Saumarez deny his own orders? He's a square-sailin' sort, treated me right well before.'

'That's easily answered. There were no sealed orders.'

'I saw 'em wi' my own eyes, Nicholas!'

'Those were counterfeit, added to the original orders.'

Kydd slumped back. 'Why?'

'As I said, to bring about your fall from grace and ruin in the most complete fashion possible. A masterly plot, it has to be admitted,' Renzi mused. He went on firmly, 'I saw the orders were unopened: Prosser signed for them in due form in the admiral's office and they were still unopened when I took them in charge. This implies that if there was anything untoward it was done in the admiral's office.'

'Then we clap on all sail an' go—'

'This will not be possible. Your presence will be resisted. More to the point, it will be to no purpose.'

'I'll sweat it out o' th' buggers—someone knows—'

'It would appear, dear fellow, that anyone having influence in a commander-in-chief's office and acting with confidence and a degree of familiarity, one admiral upon another, does in fact suggest—'

'Lockwood!' Kydd recalled the man's threats when he had chosen Rosalynd over his daughter.

'I cannot dispute your conclusion. He has sworn to destroy you for what he imagines you've done concerning his family, and but for the respect you have already won from Admiral Saumarez, you would now be facing a court-martial and certain public ruination.'

'How . . . ?'

'The motive is established, the method easily deduced. It requires but one corrupt clerk to accept a suitably fat bribe to insert the poisonous forgery, and one smuggler knowing the coast to deposit the chest, and it is done.' He added, 'It's the perfect method, for how do we proceed? Do we know who took the bribe? Confront the admiral's staff one by one and demand they confess? Or minutely examine their motions on the day in question and—It's hopeless, I'm obliged to say.'

Kydd slumped back. 'If you'd have found th' orders when you were called, Nicholas, I'd have waved 'em in Saumarez's face an' m' case would be proved.'

'You will believe I searched furiously, the escort looking on with a certain impatience—but as you can observe, if I confessed knowledge of them by their absence, we'd be in a strange fixation both.'

'Then they're still aboard!'

'I rather doubt it. I personally supervised the removal of your effects with the intent of their discovery. If you could but remember where you placed them?'

'I—I've tried, damn it, but we were in a moil at th' time, puttin' t' sea an' all.'

Renzi sighed. 'But then it's all of no account. At this space of time, should you produce them now it would be considered a clumsy attempt at exculpation. No, brother, this is as serious a matter as we have ever faced—and I confess at this time I see no way forward.'

Kydd was frustrated and restless. 'I've a notion t' take a walk, Nicholas, clear th' intellects.' Spirited discussion had not resolved the matter, but there had to be a way through.

With his uniform packed and stowed, Kydd was in his barely worn civilian garb, the dark-green tailed coat and nondescript pantaloons feeling odd after his stout naval coat and breeches. He was now a figure of scandal, of wonder—a Navy captain who had been publicly shamed, caught out in a felony and dismissed his ship. To make things even more juicy for the gossips he was the undoubted hero of the recent Granville action. In the street he would be pointed out, gaped at, scorned—and not a word could he say in his defence.

Feeling hot shame he descended the inn stairs, holding to his heart that, no matter what, he knew he was innocent of any wrongdoing. The street was in its usual clamorous busyness and Kydd's emergence was not noticed. Gathering his courage about him he turned left and marched resolutely up High Street.

Renzi caught up with him in the more spacious upper reaches. 'I hadn't bargained on such a gallop,' he puffed. 'Do moderate your pace, I beg.'

But Kydd wanted to be away from the town and didn't slow. Eventually they found the road north, slackened